Different name, different premium

laissez-faire

laissez-faire

laissez-faire

Soldato
Joined
23 Oct 2002
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Edinburgh/Southampton
On www.rac.co.uk putting my name as Sam Armstrong, 1 years insurance ... £926. Push the back button and changing my name to 'Joe Armstrong' ... £908. Surely that is illegal?

EDIT > I heard about this from my sister-in-law, anyway, after playing around further, I am just going to put my name in as S Armstrong as this also yields £908. It kind of makes me rage. If they phone me up later wanting my full name I'll give it to them and tell them where to stick it if they ask for the extra £18!
 
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laissez-faire said:
On www.rac.co.uk putting my name as Sam Armstrong, 1 years insurance ... £926. Push the back button and changing my name to 'Joe Armstrong' ... £908. Surely that is illegal?

EDIT > I heard about this from my sister-in-law, anyway, after playing around further, I am just going to put my name in as S Armstrong as this also yields £908. It kind of makes me rage. If they phone me up later wanting my full name I'll give it to them and tell them where to stick it if they ask for the extra £18!
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You are not obliged to buy car insurance from them so they can charge what they like, for whatever reasons they like. So it cannot be "illegal"
 
laissez-faire said:
On www.rac.co.uk putting my name as Sam Armstrong, 1 years insurance ... £926. Push the back button and changing my name to 'Joe Armstrong' ... £908. Surely that is illegal?
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What you're probably coming up against is the "random factor" in the quote engine. It's a bit of a marketing ploy becuase someone will come along and be quoted a high price which is still less than the competition and so RAC get the business at a decent price. The next person comes along and get's a great deal subsidised by person 1 so tells person 3 who might get a high quote etc.
 
Lopéz said:
You are not obliged to buy car insurance from them so they can charge what they like, for whatever reasons they like. So it cannot be "illegal"
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Not sure about that. If i was selling bread at 50p a loaf but added 10p if you were black would that be legal? Is it not the same?
 
laissez-faire said:
On www.rac.co.uk putting my name as Sam Armstrong, 1 years insurance ... £926. Push the back button and changing my name to 'Joe Armstrong' ... £908. Surely that is illegal?

EDIT > I heard about this from my sister-in-law, anyway, after playing around further, I am just going to put my name in as S Armstrong as this also yields £908. It kind of makes me rage. If they phone me up later wanting my full name I'll give it to them and tell them where to stick it if they ask for the extra £18!
Click to expand...

I think you will find its a 100% proven (by the labour government) that people called Sam are 23% more likely to have an accident and also (because its the hot topic) have a 43% larger carbon footprint than your average Joe.

Id probably change my name to Tinkerbell Greenfield if I were you
 
There's some sort of exemption with stuff like insurance though because they can do stuff like claim that names have an impact on the tendancy of those people to claim. Stuff like "only chavs use the name X, therefore the risk of insuring X Smith is higher, therefore increase the cost of the policy" type of logic.
 
tonyyeb said:
Not sure about that. If i was selling bread at 50p a loaf but added 10p if you were black would that be legal? Is it not the same?
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Insurance is based on risk.
If people called Sam crash more cars than people called Joe then Sam should pay more.
 
Lopéz said:
Insurance is based on risk.
If people called Sam crash more cars than people called Joe then Sam should pay more.
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Wow.. no wonder im being bent over the barrell (My name is Sam)
 
Lopéz said:
Insurance is based on risk.
If people called Sam crash more cars than people called Joe then Sam should pay more.
Click to expand...

To be honest i think it is something that i'm surprised that human rights lawyers have not set about. Think about what they can differentiate (sp?) on: Age and sex. Think about if they were factors in job interviews - the press would have a field day.

I agree that insurance is based on risk but generalisations are not fair. My future brother in law, aged 19, pays £1200 per year for a 1.2 Ibiza. But he drives like a grandma, but he's classed as a boy racer. I know 25% of accidents are caused by sub 25 year olds or whatever the stat is. But the rules should change to experience, not sex and age. By the time he is 24 he might have 6 years no claims - but still pays higher premium than a 35 year old with 6 years no claims. And a female in his position might pay less.
 
Did you get the first quote through confused or similar? They will add a bit to the quote due to the fact they get a cut if you buy using a quote through them. It's only £10 or so anyway, just phone up and you can probably haggle a lot more off the quote than that.
 
F355 said:
Did you get the first quote through confused or similar? They will add a bit to the quote due to the fact they get a cut if you buy using a quote through them. It's only £10 or so anyway, just phone up and you can probably haggle a lot more off the quote than that.
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Funny my mate got a quote throught Kwik Fit and Kwik Fit through confused and it was a bit cheaper. I thought that insuruers paid confused.com to be part fo their search not confused taking a cut of each policy bought. Then the insurer pays confused a little extra if they get more policies bought throught confused.com. They aren't like a broker afaik.
 
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